The Edit-aholic Chronicles: A Journey Through Perfectionism

An attempt at balancing not caring and caring too much

Perfectionism, the buzzword of the decade.

In the first page of Google results, you can find symptoms, treatment, and prevention of perfectionism on healthline.com. The once beloved answer to “what’s your greatest weakness?” is now seen as a true negative answer.

To be a perfectionist, one obsesses over the details to an extent that may keep anything from being made. Movies have been delayed decades due to extreme obsessive editing. Books haven’t been written. Paintings have been left on shelves.

Recently, two types of perfectionism have been defined.

There’s the healthy perfectionism that doesn’t completely interfere with your life. Sure, it may have you work harder or longer on projects than others. But it lets you create, publish, and continue onward.

Maladaptive perfectionism is what I described earlier. It takes more than it gives. It leaves you and your projects at your wits end either trying to finish them or giving up before they begin. It has you set completely unrealistic standards or, if not, it continues to move the goal post on your reasonable ones until they’re not.

I have both or, rather, swing between the two. The more I try to get rid of my maladaptive side, the less I’ve started caring. The less I’ve cared, the worse my work becomes. To an extent, this is fine. At my work place, I create various social posts that need constant, last-minute tweaks. It’s fine if they’re not extraordinary. The important thing is to post them.

Yet, this doesn’t always feel right.

I feel stupid for not noticing spelling errors. I know I can create better designs. I can write better copy and captions. I can even type what’s in front of me incorrectly such as the price I need to carry over or other details.

I’m a graphic designer, shouldn’t I have a crazy amazing newsletter aesthetic and logo? Shouldn’t I have a regular, curated social media presence? Shouldn’t my websites look sublime if I created sites at a previous job?

This crippled my output to nearly nothing. I preferred templates and, as much as I wanted to create something original, I knew what I created wouldn’t match what I hoped.

So, I’ve tried to correct this over time.

I went to therapy for the first time so tied up about whether or not I was taking out the trash. I thought day in and day out how I should take it out. It’s overflowing. But I didn’t. I was told not to think about it. However, I continued to worry as I thought I’d forget if I didn’t.

I worked through other hardships, not directly pertaining to my creativity. When I moved, I wanted to continue my journey of healing. I found another therapist in the area. This time my concerns had to do with my religious beliefs and wanting to write. But I didn’t.

In ways, I have made progress. I allow myself to create. For the beginning of this year, my art creation exploded. I had ideas left and right. I implemented them instead of scrolling on my phone all night. Yes, I had days I didn’t create. I had days I procrastinated (actually most of them) before prepping for my next art event.

I wasn’t perfect. Yet I was progressing.

Until, well, my stories were unearthed. I connected with some amazing people on Threads who wanted more. They liked how I wrote, my ideas, and at least the part of me I showed on there. Not only that, but I suddenly had a great new story idea and a whole new direction for a shelved story (shelved as it’s direction wasn’t there). Everything seemed to be lining up, like with my art.

Instead, it crashed.

I couldn’t bring myself to start writing or brainstorming. My perfectionism tore my motivation away before I could argue. With that, I was left wanting to create but unsure what.

When I went back to draw more silly nightwalkers, I couldn’t get them to turn out right. The pants with eyes no longer looked like, well, pants with eyes. They looked like blobs. I tried to do some simple redesigns of my current ones. The poor creatures still turned out wrong. I even had trouble drawing a cat head which is my go-to.

Therefore, I decided to try to draft up some newsletters. With the decreased interest and reads, I became obsessed with writing just the right thing. It didn’t help one stack I read to help small “businesses” started posting about the things most people do wrong. This gave me a place to dig my foot in and research.

Despite all of this, I haven’t created anything (besides this newsletter) in months. Even now, I’m going through the night before this gets published trying to write a perfect draft. I want to let go, but know my creation will be sub par if I do.

Or, at least, that’s what I think.

I’ve tried to break out of this for weeks. I’ve tried to let myself have ample downtime and fun. I’ve taken breaks from my phone which has given me more ideas. The ideas, then, piled onto my expectations of what I should do.

I’ve begun to mourn the downfall of my art “business” and my inability to write. I’ve started thinking I will always be like this. I’ll never actually be a productive creator (productive meaning I can finish and maintain projects).

I don’t know how to get out of this funk. I don’t know if I’ll recover before losing the progress I’ve made. While I try to accept failure, I don’t know what to do with it.

I’ve pulled through earlier; I’ve played a record with a dollar.

Now I’m dollar-less and confused.

Wishing you guidance through any confusion,

Ada

---

Newsletter update

I decided to try uploading weekly here as I did notice more traction. However, I burnt myself out. Multiple times which you can see detailed in my month or so gaps afterwards.

I’m going to shift back to bi-weekly.

Regarding the inspiration week, I had trouble dialing back the article and spent roughly 1-2 hours scavenging for something worth showing you guys. So I did stop that, as you may have noticed.

I may experiment with a monthly inspo/review. This will be separate from my every other week, posted on the last Friday of the month.

Also, I will not be posting the week of Christmas. This is because I don’t want my newsletter to be one of the many distractions from your family, friends, or found family.

Finally, I may be moving in the relative future, depending on when my current place sells. So I may also be a little less active, even in the bi-weeks due to this.

Hope you have a good holiday season!

---

SUBSCRIBE OR SHARE UNBOXING CROHNIC CREATIVITY

A weekly newsletter about re-finding creativity while facing big, very real monsters in our head and bodies. Any read, like, comment, share, or subscription supports this free publication.